The Deadly 7

by Garth Jennings

  But all of this was just a memory now. A memory that was so at odds with the present that it was like remembering bits of a film you had watched while half asleep on the sofa, rather than something that had really happened to him.

  Snip. Sssnip.

  He had considered telling everyone the truth, but every time the words had begun to form in his head he realized how crazy it all sounded, and maybe now wasn’t a good time. The longer he left it, the less he felt the need to claim his part as the real hero in this story. He didn’t even feel like a hero. He just felt … normal.

  “Well, I heard you’re going to be in Katy Newman’s new play,” said Celeste loudly to compete with the hair dryer now blasting away at his hair.

  It was true. Apart from Katy Newman there had been zero interest in his return to school. Everyone was focused on Celeste, although she had no memory of her kidnapping beyond being on the boat with her friends in Spain, so her story was always short: kidnapped by her aunt and uncle and woke up in a Brazilian jungle.

  The papers had reported Carla’s claims about magic and exploding stones, but who on earth was going to believe her? She was just a crazy lady who clearly lived in a fantasy world.

  * * *

  Katy Newman had been the only one to show any interest in Nelson. For the first three days back at school he kept catching her looking at him, and on the fourth day she accosted him in the lunch line.

  “I’ve written a new play.”

  “Really? Oh. Good for you, Katy.”

  “It’s about the final moments before the world ends. And I need someone to be the hero.” Nelson realized she was asking him to be in her play, which he knew for a fact would be terrible, and that if he agreed to it, she would make him dress up in something embarrassing and probably even sing.

  Katy’s expression of hope and longing suddenly reminded Nelson of the strange fish that he had followed into the dark to the bottom of the river.

  “I’ll be in it if you like,” said Nelson, and it was worth it to see Katy Newman blush before dashing away, just like the fish had done before he had exploded.

  * * *

  He was right about the play. It turned out to be her worst yet. But Nelson enjoyed being part of it nonetheless. He liked being backstage for rehearsal at lunchtime instead of kicking a ball by himself in the playground. He liked helping to build Katy’s ridiculous props and learning how to make the lights different colors. Hardly anyone ever came to see her plays anyway so it didn’t matter that they were so bad.

  * * *

  “Where’s your freckle gone?” asked Celeste, and Nelson opened his eyes to see his big sister looking at him with her head tilted to one side and the hair dryer dangling from her hand.

  “What do you mean?” asked Nelson, and Celeste handed him a tiny travel mirror so that he could see his reflection.

  It was true. His one freckle that used to live right on the tip of his nose had gone.

  “See, you have changed,” said Celeste as she admired the new short haircut she’d given her brother.

  “Well, maybe just a little bit,” said Nelson.

  “Lunch is ready!” shouted their father, and Nelson felt his belly rumble expectantly.

  * * *

  Although this Sunday meal had been an extra-lively affair due to having Uncle Pogo and his new best friend Doody join them, Nelson had remained quiet at the end of the table.

  “What’s wrong with you, grumpy face?” said his mum, and Nelson sighed and shrank back farther into his seat. It had been nearly four weeks since he’d returned from Brazil and there had not been a single sign of his seven monsters. Some nights Nelson would hear a howl in the yard and rush to the window, only to discover a fox raiding their trash bins. He would stare out the window at school in the hope of seeing them appear suddenly to rescue him from his lessons. Sometimes he thought he saw a monster face in the bushes at the far end of the playground, but it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Nelson began to wonder if he had dreamed the whole thing.

  As his father filled their guests’ glasses with wine and they all tucked into roast lamb with roast potatoes and all the trimmings, Pogo and Doody told them about their new joint project. After his recent appearance on the news, TV executives at Channel 4 had been taken by Doody’s infectious enthusiasm for history and had commissioned a six-part show: Doody Investigates! Each week, Doody would be testing out the strange devices and gizmos they had discovered in Wren’s secret chambers, and he had roped Pogo in to help him with rebuilding the apparatus that had perished.

  “When I saw what this big bloke can do with a false leg—all them gadgets and gizmos—I was, like, I gotta ’ave that bloke on my team! ’E’s a nutter, inn’e?” said Doody before stuffing an obscene amount of food into his mouth.

  “I’m building a new leg at the moment,” said Pogo, lifting his trousers to show a new silver prosthetic limb. “I still can’t find the old one anywhere.”

  Nelson’s heart gave a great jolt.

  He had completely forgotten about his uncle’s false leg.

  He’d left it with his monsters! Miser was bound to have kept it with him. Miser kept everything.

  Nelson was so overcome with excitement that he choked and spat the food out of his mouth.

  “Nelson Green! What is wrong with you!” barked his mother, but Nelson was already scrambling around the table and out of the kitchen.

  He’d never climbed the stairs so fast in his life and he burst through the door to the spare room like a policeman about to pounce on a criminal.

  He slammed the door shut and pushed an old armchair covered in clothes waiting to be ironed against the door.

  Then he picked up the phone and scrolled through the contacts until he found Uncle Pogo’s mobile number and pressed Call.

  There was silence except for bursts of muffled laughter from the kitchen below.

  Nelson could hardly breathe. He wanted nothing more than to hear the voices of his monsters. To know they were coming back to find him. There was a click and then Nelson heard a ringtone. It was a foreign tone, which meant the false leg was still somewhere abroad.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” whispered Nelson, and there was a click followed by a voice speaking.

  “This is Pogo. I’m sorry I can’t take your call at the moment, but please leave a message after the beep and I’ll get right back to you … Beep!”

  Nelson hung up, and at that very same moment there was a knock at the door.

  “Nelson?” said Celeste. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just looking for something.”

  “Pavlova for dessert we are having,” said Celeste in her terrible Yoda voice.

  “Okay, Yoda. I’m coming.”

  “By the way, have you still got my pendant?” said Celeste in her own voice.

  Nelson faltered. The urge to tell Celeste the truth was impossible to resist. He was certain she would believe that he had fed it to Carla in order to save her, but as Nelson tried to think how to start, his sister spoke.

  “You’ve lost it, haven’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean to. It’s because—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Celeste. “It was only a pendant. I can get another one.” And with that, she turned and left.

  Nelson took one last look out at the yard. The sun was setting behind the houses on the other side of the fence. It was a pretty sight, but Nelson felt nothing but sadness. He hadn’t realized how much he missed his monster friends until now. He gave a great sniff and double blink to stop the tears that were trying to get out of his eyes, dragged the chair away from the door, and joined the rest of his family, who were laughing at one of his mother’s rude jokes in the kitchen.

  THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND

  It had been a very successful royal visit. For once her husband had behaved himself and not said a single thing to embarrass her. The weather had been gorgeous and her choice of hats
had suited every occasion better than she’d hoped. The prime minister of Brazil had turned out to be rather more handsome in real life than the photos she had seen, and the banquet last night had been one of the most jolly and entertaining events she had attended in years. Once she was sure there were no more press photographers in the vicinity, Queen Elizabeth kicked off her neat white shoes and flexed her royal toes against the carpeted floor of their private plane.

  A gin and tonic sat beside her, and her husband was already sound asleep in his seat.

  Bliss, thought Queen Elizabeth as the plane rolled back from its stand at Rio airport and began its journey to the runway. Through the little round window she could see hundreds of people waving British and Brazilian flags and the distant flash of camera phones getting one last snap of the royal plane before it returned to London. The Queen waved back, even though no one would have been able to see her. Old habits die hard.

  * * *

  This would turn out to be the only part of the journey home the Queen would enjoy, for not only did it transpire that all of the royal food, apart from the peanuts, had mysteriously vanished, but they would also experience random bouts of turbulence all the way home, which even the highly trained royal pilot could not explain. Queen Elizabeth would never know that it wasn’t turbulence that shook her plane so wildly. It was all due to a party being held in the cargo hold. A gang of deadly monsters were celebrating their return to England in true monster style—although one of them had been stupid enough to fall for the same old trick and was having to fly alongside the plane, his gold feathers glinting in the sun as he hovered in the slipstream of the royal jet.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Some people I would like to thank:

  First and foremost I would like to thank a lovely lady called Rachel Petty, who works at Macmillan Children’s Books in London, for giving me the opportunity to turn my idea into a book and then editing the results with so much wit and enthusiasm. Next I want to thank a tall and brilliant American man called Frank Wuliger from the Gersh Agency and a shorter but equally brilliant British lady called Felicity Rubinstein from Lutyens & Rubinstein Literary Agency for their guidance and encouragement. A very big thank you to the entire team at Macmillan Children’s Books—especially Kat and Bea—a more welcoming, talented, and supportive group of human beings is impossible to imagine. Extremely large thanks also to Wes Adams, my editor at Farrar Straus Giroux, and to the whole crew at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group in that wonderful Flatiron Building in New York, for all of your hard work in helping to bring the American edition of this book to life. I would like to apologize to my sons, Oscar, Leo, Caspar and Asa, for spending so many weekends at my desk writing when they really wanted me to go outside and play Frisbee. And finally I would like to thank my wife, Louise, but I won’t because she would probably be very embarrassed if I told you just how wonderful I think she is.

  Some people I am definitely not going to thank:

  I would definitely not like to thank the guy who lets his dog go to the loo right outside our front door all the time, the person who stole Oscar’s bicycle, and whoever it is that hides one really disgusting pistachio nut in every pack I buy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  GARTH JENNINGS lives in London with his wife and three sons. He has directed music videos (for bands such as Blur, Radiohead, and Vampire Weekend) and movies (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow, for which he also wrote the screenplay), and is currently directing Sing, an animated musical comedy. The Deadly 7 is his first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Warning

  The Slippery Giant

  Lasagna

  Adolph Hitler in a Box

  The Day That Fell to Pieces

  Uncle Pogo

  One Dead Nelson

  The Secret Laboratory

  Professor Doody and the Vanishing Toast

  Hideous Fruit

  The Pendant and the Fire

  The Scream

  Uninvited Guests

  Soul Divining

  The River of Life

  The Spinning Beach Ball

  Driving Monsters

  The Good News, the Bad News, and the Fireball

  Please Don’t Eat the Soap

  The Disguise

  Sing Along with Hoot

  Fruit and Nut

  The Power of Crush

  Hello, My Name Is Jesus

  The Empty Head

  The End of the Road

  Don’t Drink the Water

  Choose Your Cow

  Abba’s Greatest Hits

  Hot-Dog Missiles

  The Jelly Freaks

  Paradise

  The Deadly Seven

  The Light in the Dark

  The Gift

  Ommmmmmmmmmm

  Bang!

  The Admirable Nelson

  Three Weeks, Four Days, Fifteen Hours, and Eighteen Minutes Later

  The Queen of England

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

  Text copyright © 2015 Garth Jennings

  All rights reserved

  First hardcover edition, 2016

  eBook edition, April 2016

  mackids.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Jennings, Garth, author, illustrator.

  Title: The deadly 7 / Garth Jennings.

  Other titles: Deadly seven

  Description: First American edition.|New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2016. | “First published in Great Britain by Macmillan Children’s Books, 2015.” | Summary: “Nelson stumbles across an ancient machine that accidentally extracts the seven deadly sins from his own little soul—by turning them into ugly, cantankerous, and embarrassing creatures who follow him everywhere”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015021390 | ISBN 9781250052759 (hardback) | ISBN 9780374303297 (e-book)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Monsters—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Deadly sins—Fiction. | Missing children—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Monsters. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic. | JUVENILE FICTION / Science Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.J455 De 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015021390

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  eISBN 9780374303297